Microsoft News Tracker

(Via Bink.nu) It’s clearly the silly season - how about a Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade package signed by Bill Gates?

Heck, it’s one of 20,000 numbered copies and some years down the road your grandchildren can get it appraised on the Antiques Roadshow! I do have to say that looking at the picture it appears that the signature is merely printed on the cover - Mr. Gates didn’t really sign all 20,000 copies.

Update: The post referenced below has been pulled from Mr. Takahashi’s weblog and Jason Chen at Gizmodo suggests that it was mistakenly released early with Microsoft likely being a bit grumpy at the leak.

Dean Takahashi at The Mercury News:

Bill Gates and Robbie Bach are expected to announce at the Consumer Electronics Show that Microsoft has sold more than 10.4 million Xbox 360s since the launch in November, 2005. That means Microsoft has also hit its targets for sales of consoles during the holidays.

There will likely be some quibbles that this only means shipped to the channel and not necessarily in the hands of consumers, but that kind of counting is not atypical. But wait, there’s more!

Microsoft is also dropping something of a bomb at the show. Jim Brady, a spokesman for Microsoft, said Gates and Bach will say in the keynote speech Sunday night at the Venetian Hotel that the Xbox 360 will be able to serve as a set-top box for IPTV, or Internet protocol television. The details on this announcement are sketchy and Brady says only that it will appear later this year.
…
He did say that no consumers would be left behind, meaning that all of the 10 million plus Xbox 360s in the market would be able to participate in the IPTV services at some level.

Takahashi explores the host of questions that this feature will raise, but my initial take is that I’m always suspicious of the actual utility of convergence devices. More refined punditry when the details are revealed.